Reading And The Internet

Slide 1: Reading and the Internet International School of Bangkok January 16, 2008 Vance Stevens http://adVancEducation.blogspot.com Petroleum Institute Abu Dhabi, UAE Future of Learning in a Networked World 2 http://flnw.wikispaces.com

Slide 2: What is Reading? • William Grabe and others characterize how reading is interaction with a writer (mirrors writing as interaction with a reader) • Cognitive loads on both, but L1 readers and writers have native language advantage • Reading heuristics might need emphasis with L2 readers who … – “may not have automated one or more of the component processes of reading in the second language, such as word decoding and recognition, resulting in working-memory overload and diversion of attention away from the construction of a text model.” – “Or at a higher processing level, readers may not be familiar with semantic or discourse schemata specific to the culture of the second language, so that they have no pre-activated scaffolding to help them summarize and organize the details of the incoming text, and quickly face overload. “ From Cobb and Stevens, 1996; reference next slide 2 Vance Stevens, Bangkok, Jan 2008 http://flnw.wikispaces.com

Slide 3: Text Manipulation • In … Cobb, T. and V. Stevens. 1996. A Principled Consideration of Computers and Reading in a Second Language. Pennington, M.C. (Ed.). The Power of CALL. Houston: Athelstan. pp.115-136. Online version: http://www.vancestevens.com/papers/1996/cobb_stevens.htm – We argue that “TM (text manipulation) templates can engage students at higher cognitive levels while presenting them with virtually limitless amounts of comprehensible input in the form of authentic texts”; • e.g. “on-line cloze exercises may promote awareness of contextual help in restoring degraded messages – “the distinctive feature of TM program design is that the program is able to deal with any text whatever” 3 Vance Stevens, Bangkok, Jan 2008 http://flnw.wikispaces.com

Slide 4: Concordance and Vocabulary • “One option made possible by the potentially large amount of text available is to provide help in the form of a concordance on the word the learner is trying to discover,” – E.g “with that word masked in the concordance output, giving learners richer context, but not the answer” – Tom Cobb’s Compleat Lexical Tutor provides corpus-based help with vocabulary: http://www.lextutor.ca See also: http://www.vancestevens.com/textanal.htm 4 Vance Stevens, Bangkok, Jan 2008 http://flnw.wikispaces.com

Slide 5: ReadingMatrix • Journal and reading resources: http://www.readingmatrix.com/ • Occasional online conference http://www.readingmatrix.com/onlineconference/conf_proceedings.html 5 Vance Stevens, Bangkok, Jan 2008 http://flnw.wikispaces.com

Slide 6: Blogging • Blogging puts students in touch with one another • Blogging for Educators – URL: http://blogging4educators.pbwiki.com/ – All current EVO sessions: http://evo08sessionscfp.pbwiki.com/ • Relation to reading – Best introduction to blogging is to get students READING good blogs and engage in conversations with others in reflection on their practice – It is important that TEACHERS blog: There is evidence that teachers who blog are better able to model and impart enthusiasm to their students. 6 Vance Stevens, Bangkok, Jan 2008 http://flnw.wikispaces.com

Slide 7: Writingmatrix • http://writingmatrix.wikispaces.com • Focus on writing, but incidentally through reading and collaboration – Students locate each other’s work though search on common tag i.e. writingmatrix – Students read peer material and comment – Students know what they write is being read, encouraged to read and write more • For more information, Google ‘writingmatrix’ or see most recent document: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dr22kn2_24dpqdgg 7 Vance Stevens, Bangkok, Jan 2008 http://flnw.wikispaces.com

Slide 8: The Kindle from Amazon.com • Google: Amazon.com Kindle • Holds hundreds of books, memory variable • More texts easily downloadable • Designed to be read comfortably – Utilizes ‘digital paper’ – No backlight – Display can be read out of doors, in sunlight – Feels like a book, similar weight and size 8 Vance Stevens, Bangkok, Jan 2008 http://flnw.wikispaces.com

Slide 9: Printing on Demand • Machine developed to print books in minutes – Shoppers can have books printed while-u-wait • More information at On the Media, NPR “One for the books” Nov. 23, 2007 http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2007/11/23/01 9 Vance Stevens, Bangkok, Jan 2008 http://flnw.wikispaces.com

Slide 10: Other Reading Resources • http://www.vancestevens.com/reading.htm • Virtual Learning Resource Center: http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/file • Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page • Google Library Project http://books.google.com/googlebooks/library.html TheFuture of Learning in a Networked World unConference http://flnw.wikispaces.com is (un)organized by TALO: Teaching and Learning Online: http://learningnetworkedworld.blogspot.com/